Woes of the True Policeman

He really should stop smiling, thought Amalfitano as he gazed fixedly, spellbound, at Padilla’s face, finding it haggard, paler, almost translucent, as if lately the sun never shone on it. Then, when he felt Padilla’s lips on his cheek, brushing the corner of his own lips, he experienced a feeling for his former student that — the few times he stopped to think about it — disturbed him. A mixture of desire, paternal affection, and sadness, as if Padilla were the embodiment of an impossible trinity: lover, son, and ideal reflection of Amalfitano himself. He felt sorry for Padilla, for Padilla and his father, for the deaths in his life and his lost loves, which cast him in a lonely light: there, on that sad backdrop, Padilla was too young and too fragile and there was nothing Amalfitano could do about it. And while at the same time he knew with certainty — and most of the time this perplexed him — that there existed an invulnerable Padilla, arrogant as a Mediterranean god and strong as a Cuban boxer, the pity lingered, the sense of loss and impotence.

For a while they strolled aimlessly along narrow sidewalks, skirting terraces, fried-fish stands, and northern European tourists. The few words they spoke to each other made them smile.

“Do you think I look like a gay German?” asked Padilla as they wandered the port in search of a cheap hotel.

“No,” said Amalfitano, “the gay Germans I know — and all my knowledge of them comes from books — are happy brutes like you, but they tend toward self-destruction and you seem to be made of stronger stuff.”

Immediately he regretted his words; it’s talk like that, he thought, that will destroy any kind of love.

3

About the plane trip Rosa remembered that in the middle of the Atlantic her father seemed sick or queasy and all of a sudden a stewardess appeared without being called and offered them a deep golden liquid, bright and sweet smelling. The stewardess was dark-skinned, of average height, with short dark hair, and she was wearing hardly any makeup but her nails were very well kept. She asked them to try the juice and then tell her what it was. She smiled with her whole face, like someone playing a game.

Amalfitano and Rosa, distrustful by nature, each took a sip.

“Peach,” said Rosa.

“Nectarine,” murmured Amalfitano, almost in unison.

No, said the stewardess, and her good-humored smile restored some of Amalfitano’s lost courage, it’s mango.

Father and daughter drank again. This time they took lingering sips, like sommeliers who are back on the right path. Mango: have you tried it before? asked the stewardess. Yes, said Rosa and Amalfitano, but we’d forgotten. The stewardess wanted to know where. In Paris, probably, said Rosa, in a Mexican bar in Paris, a long time ago, when I was small, but I still remember it. The stewardess smiled again. It’s delicious, added Rosa. Mango, mango, thought Amalfitano, and he closed his eyes.

4

Shortly after classes began, Amalfitano met Castillo.

It was one evening, almost night, when the Santa Teresa sky turns from deep blue to an array of vermillions and purples that linger scarcely a few minutes before the sky turns back to deep blue and then black.

Amalfitano left the department library and as he crossed the campus he spotted a shape under a tree. He thought it might be a bum or a sick student and he went over to check. It was Castillo, who was sleeping peacefully and was awakened by Amalfitano’s presence: when he opened his eyes he saw a tall, angular, white-haired figure, looking vaguely like Christopher Walken, with a worried expression on his face, and he knew right away that he would fall in love.

“I thought you were dying,” said Amalfitano.

“No, I was dreaming,” said Castillo.

Amalfitano smiled, satisfied, and made as if to leave but didn’t. This part of the campus was like an oasis, three trees on a mound surrounded by a sea of grass.

“I was dreaming about the paintings of an American artist,” said Castillo, “they were set along a wide street, in the open air, the street was unpaved, lined with houses and stores, all built of wood, and the paintings seemed about to melt away in the sun and dust. It made me feel very sad. I think it was a dream about the end of the world.”

“Ah,” said Amalfitano.

“The strangest thing is that some of the paintings were mine.”

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, it is a strange dream.”

“No it isn’t,” said Castillo. “I shouldn’t be telling this to a stranger, but somehow I trust you: I really did paint some of them.”

“Some of them?” asked Amalfitano as night fell suddenly over Santa Teresa and from a campus building, a building that seemed empty, came the music of drums and horns and something that might have or might not have been a harp.

“Some paintings,” said Castillo. “I painted them myself, forged them.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, that’s how I make a living.”

“And you tell this to the first person who walks by, or is it common knowledge?”

“You’re the first person I’ve told, no one knows, it’s a secret.”